John Shelter and crew have, once again, further degraded the integrity and services of the Arcata Endeavor, the only food bank/pantry in Arcata. People who cannot PROVE THAT THEY HAVE A RESIDENCE in Arcata cannot get a food box. Do the funders know that homeless people are banned from receiving food? Do the community donors who donate food and money know that homeless people will get NOTHING from those donations?

The poverty pimps have got to go. The mission of the food endeavor is to feed hungry people. This is disgraceful.

The forecast for the next two days is for rain, hail, snow and sub freezing temperatures down to 23 degrees in Eureka and colder in the mountains. Please if you are a church or a civic organization in Eureka and Humboldt that can take in a homeless person, or family please post your information below in the comments so people may be guided to sanctuary from the killing cold. Our governments seem to be unable to provide this simple humanitarian assistance to our homeless brothers and sisters so churches must step forward. This is the kind of weather that kills people.

No shelter required!

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The Siege of Planned Parenthood

As if we didn’t have enough wars, the House of Representatives has declared one against Planned Parenthood.

Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Maybe it’s all part of a grand theme. Last month, they voted to repeal the health care law. This month, they’re going after an organization that provides millions of women with both family-planning services and basic health medical care, like pap smears and screening for diabetes, breast cancer, cervical cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.

Our legislative slogan for 2011: Let Them Use Leeches.

“What is more fiscally responsible than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?” demanded Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the chief sponsor of a bill to bar the government from directing any money to any organization that provides abortion services.

Planned Parenthood doesn’t use government money to provide abortions; Congress already prohibits that, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. (Another anti-abortion bill that’s coming up for hearing originally proposed changing the wording to “forcible rape,” presumably under the theory that there was a problem with volunteer rape victims. On that matter at least, cooler heads prevailed.)

Planned Parenthood does pay for its own abortion services, though, and that’s what makes them a target. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for his bill. He was helped this week by an anti-abortion group called Live Action, which conducted a sting operation at 12 Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, in an effort to connect the clinic staff to child prostitution.

“Planned Parenthood aids and abets the sexual abuse and prostitution of minors,” announced Lila Rose, the beautiful anti-abortion activist who led the project. The right wing is currently chock-full of stunning women who want to end their gender’s right to control their own bodies. Homely middle-aged men are just going to have to find another sex to push around.

Live Action hired an actor who posed as a pimp and told Planned Parenthood counselors that he might have contracted a sexually transmitted disease from “one of the girls I manage.” He followed up with questions about how to obtain contraceptives and abortions, while indicating that some of his “girls” were under age and illegally in the country.

One counselor, shockingly, gave the “pimp” advice on how to game the system and was summarily fired when the video came out. But the others seem to have answered his questions accurately and flatly. Planned Parenthood says that after the man left, all the counselors — including the one who was fired — reported the conversation to their supervisors, who called the authorities. (One Arizona police department, the organization said, refused to file a report.)

Still, there is no way to look good while providing useful information to a self-proclaimed child molester, even if the cops get called. That, presumably, is why Live Action chose the scenario.

“We have a zero tolerance of nonreporting anything that would endanger a minor,” said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. “We do the same thing public hospitals do and public clinics do.”

But here’s the most notable thing about this whole debate: The people trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business do not seem concerned about what would happen to the 1.85 million low-income women who get family-planning help and medical care at the clinics each year. It just doesn’t come up. There’s not even a vague contingency plan.

“I haven’t seen that they want to propose an alternative,” said Richards.

There are tens of millions Americans who oppose abortion because of deeply held moral principles. But they’re attached to a political movement that sometimes seems to have come unmoored from any concern for life after birth.

There is no comparable organization to Planned Parenthood, providing the same kind of services on a national basis. If there were, most of the women eligible for Medicaid-financed family-planning assistance wouldn’t have to go without it. In Texas, which has one of the highest teenage birthrates in the country, only about 20 percent of low-income women get that kind of help. Yet Planned Parenthood is under attack, and the State Legislature has diverted some of its funding to crisis pregnancy centers, which provide no medical care and tend to be staffed by volunteers dedicated to dissuading women from having abortions.

In Washington, the new Republican majority that promised to do great things about jobs, jobs, jobs is preparing for hearings on a bill to make it economically impossible for insurance companies to offer policies that cover abortions. And in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, faced with an epic budget crisis that’s left the state’s schools and health care services in crisis, has brought out emergency legislation — requiring mandatory sonograms for women considering abortion.

SDPD Officer Anthony Bueno Accused Of Slashing Homeless Couple’s Tent

SAN DIEGO — 10News has uncovered troubling details in the background of a police officer accused of going rogue and taking his anger out on homeless citizens in San Diego.

Officer Anthony Bueno, an 11-year veteran, remains on the job pending an investigation.

Bueno is accused of slashing a homeless San Diego couple’s tent in December. Homeless San Diegan Malia Mason said the police officer, who was upset she had put up a tent during a rainy night, used a knife to slash her tent and cords.

“He was slicing as I climbed out and the knife came within inches of my face,” said Mason in an interview in December.

Homeless advocate David Ross said the tent-slashing incident was one of five similar incidents documented against the officer during a two-week span in November.”It’s shocking and disappointing,” said Ross.

10News learned Bueno was arrested in 2007 on four counts of misdemeanor battery on a fellow police officer while on duty. Few details of the incident are known, but in that case, Bueno pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and was allowed to stay on the force.

Last year, Bueno was on the scene of the death of a homeless man in East Village. Another homeless man who is accused of resisting arrest said Bueno was “joking and speaking very disrespectfully” about the deceased man and provoked the incident.

Ross said Bueno should be removed from the streets.”Him being on the streets invites similar behavior and reflects very poorly on the police department,” said Ross. “It’s disappointing because the police department, including the homeless outreach team, has been trying very hard. I’m not here to indict the entire department.”

10News brought Ross’ demand to Boyd Long, the assistant police chief. When asked why Bueno was not taken off the streets, Long replied, “We haven’t reached the conclusion we need to pull the officer out of the field. We do take these accusations very seriously.”

10News was told the primary reason for keeping Bueno active was because several witness statements and surveillance video cast doubt on Mason’s version of events.

“I don’t believe that. Each of the interviews I conducted were consistent. They were scared of this officer,” said Ross.

Though the tent-slashing investigation should be wrapped up soon, a second internal probe is possible into the accusations that Bueno was making fun of a deceased homeless man.

Meanwhile, a judge will soon decide if the details that 10News uncovered will be allowed as evidence in the trial of the homeless man accused of resisting arrest.

The Wikileaks Effect[col. writ. 1/27/11] (c) ’11 Mumia Abu-JamalAs these words are being scribbled, U.S. ‘allies’ in the Middle East are trembling.From the streets of Tunis, to Alexandria, to Cairo, tens of thousands are demanding not only democracy, but an end to their dictatorships –dictatorships, by the way, armed and supported by the U.S. Empire. What drove these people into the streets were the sickening revelations of the puppetry, corruption and abject servility of their leaders to U.S. and Western interests. Many of these leaders, who’ve led for lifetimes, have amassed enormous fortunes while generations of youth pass through their lives jobless, unfulfilled and brutally bullied by the dictator’s internal police forces, usually composed of people trained, equipped (or both) by U.S. agencies. Wikileaks revealed American diplomatic cables reflecting U.S. knowledge of and acquiescence to their puppet states corruption, torture and brutality. They didn’t care how cruel nor corrupt these countries were, as long as they served U.S. interests — i.e., “stability’ — or quiet in the face of U.S., Western or Israeli aggression in the region. Egypt receives billions of U.S bucks every year, to buttress its dictatorship.This spate of rebellions in Muslim states is especially important given the recent news that many leaders were privately urging the U.S. to attack Iran, for this shows well that few spoke for their people. They spoke for a narrow, parasitical ruling clique. If change comes to the region it won’t be because of U.S. efforts, but in spite of them.–(c) ’11 maj==================

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